The Shift That Costs Me Money

She worked it out properly in February and then wished she had not, because you cannot unknow a number.

The shift is eight hours. After the childcare, after the bus, after the thing she has to buy for lunch because there is no time to make one, she is eleven pounds behind by the time she gets home.

Not eleven pounds up. Behind.

And she still goes. Four days a week, because stopping is its own kind of cliff: the job would go, and jobs like it are not simply picked back up, and there is a version of the future where the hours are worth having again and she cannot get to it from a standing start.

So she works four days to be about forty four pounds worse off a week, and she has told nobody, because it sounds insane when you say it out loud.

Here is what it costs beyond the money.

She is tired in a way that sleep does not touch. She has become short with a five year old who has done nothing. There was a morning in March when she sat in the bus shelter and did not get on the bus, and got on the next one, and has never told anybody about that either.

And there is a sentence underneath all of it. If I were managing this properly it would work.

That is the one I would like to take off her, because it is not true and it has been doing more damage than the arithmetic.

That is you, and the numbers are not a report on how well you are coping.

The practical part first

Nothing here asks you for money and nothing on this site is behind anything.

Nothing here will tell you that provision follows faith. That teaching finds women in exactly your position and takes from them, and it is not what the Bible says.

And before anything spiritual, let me put the practical things down, because they are the most useful part of this page.

Get a benefits check. Not a rough one; a proper one, free, from Citizens Advice or a similar service. Systems change, and a very large amount of childcare support goes unclaimed every year by people who assumed they would not qualify or who were told something inaccurate two years ago.

Ask specifically about childcare costs being covered or reimbursed, about free hours you may now be entitled to that you were not last year, and about anything available through your employer. It is written, in Isaiah 40:29, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes what is written off a page and into a life.

Ask your employer about hours. Not as a favor. A shift that costs an employee money is a retention problem for them, and a manager who does not know about it cannot solve it.

And take somebody with you, or ring while somebody sits next to you. Not because you are incapable. Because nobody thinks clearly about their own numbers while this tired.

You are not in this because you managed badly. Scripture says I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound, Philippians 4:12, and Paul writes it from inside the lean half rather than looking back on it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who steadies a woman in a bus shelter in March.

The verse is addressed to the ones already out

There is a line in Isaiah 40 that is precise about who it is for, and the precision is the comfort.

He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.Isaiah 40:29

Read who is being addressed. The faint. Them that have no might.

Not the tired but coping. Not the ones with something left in reserve. The ones who are already out.

That is a specific address, and it means this verse is not a reward for endurance. It is not describing God topping up somebody who is doing well. It is describing what He does for a person who has nothing left, which is the exact category you have been in since about February. Scripture settles that in Isaiah 40:29, and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries it rather than these words.

And notice both verbs. Giveth and increaseth. Both His, neither yours. There is nothing in that sentence about the faint person generating anything.

You are not disqualified from this by being empty. Scripture says he giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength, Isaiah 40:29, and the emptiness is the qualifying condition rather than the obstacle, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does that in a woman four days a week at the end of a shift.

The sentence underneath

If I were managing this properly it would work.

Let me take that apart, because it is doing you real harm.

The gap between what childcare costs and what an hourly shift pays is not a personal failure. It is arithmetic that a great many people are currently inside, and it is produced by two prices that have nothing to do with how organized you are. I am not putting my own idea over you; Scripture says it in Isaiah 40:29, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes it live.

No amount of better management closes an eleven pound gap. You could plan perfectly, cook everything from scratch, never buy a coffee, and the numbers would still not meet, because the problem is not leakage. It is structure.

And the belief that it is your fault does one specific thing that costs you dearly: it stops you asking. People do not ask for help with a problem they believe they created through incompetence. So the benefits check does not happen, the conversation with the employer does not happen, and you carry it alone for another year.

You are not the reason those two numbers do not meet. Scripture says the Lord looketh on the heart, 1 Samuel 16:7, and the outward appearance in your life is currently a bank balance, and the Holy Spirit is not assessing a woman by a figure produced by two prices she does not set.

The bus shelter

I want to come back to March, because you have filed it as a bad moment and it was information. That is not my opinion. Scripture stands behind it in Isaiah 40:29, and the Holy Spirit brings it near.

You sat down and did not get on the bus. Then you got on the next one.

That is not a breakdown and it is not a failure of will. That is a body saying, clearly, in the only language it has, that it is past what it can sustain, and then a woman getting on the next bus anyway because a five year old needed her to.

Both halves matter. The signal was real, and you should not ignore it. The getting on the next bus tells you something about what you are made of that no arithmetic can touch. Scripture holds that ground in Isaiah 40:29, and it is the Holy Spirit who carries it into a room like this one.

But a signal like that repeated for another year does not stay a moment in a bus shelter. Tell your doctor about the tiredness that sleep does not touch. That is a real symptom and it deserves a proper look rather than being assumed to be the obvious thing.

You are not required to run on empty indefinitely. Scripture says come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, Matthew 11:28, and it is addressed to people carrying a load rather than to people who have put one down, and the Holy Spirit is the one who was in that bus shelter and got a woman onto the next one.